FEBRUARY 2: While the parties are meeting on non-core economics issues today, both Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet and Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe write that core economics discussion could pick back up by the end of this week. Whenever those discussions resume, the owners are likely to put forth their response to the MLBPA’s Tuesday proposal.
FEBRUARY 1: There was another round of collective bargaining negotiations this afternoon, at which the Major League Baseball Players Association made its latest proposal. According to various reports, the union put forth only small changes relative to its past offers.
The most meaningful alterations are twofold, hears Evan Drellich of the Athletic (Twitter thread). First, the union tweaked the bonus pool system that would award exceptional pre-arbitration performers. While the MLBPA had pushed for a $105MM pool in previous offers, they reduced that number to $100MM in today’s proposal. That’s still far above the $10MM that MLB has envisioned for those bonus allotments, leaving a massive gap yet to be bridged. As Drellich and Ken Rosenthal explained yesterday, that’s even before accounting for the fact that the MLBPA is hoping to spread that money to a smaller group of players than MLB would like, given the union’s push for players reaching arbitration earlier in their careers.
The other known modification to the union’s offer, per Drellich, involves efforts to disincentivize service time gaming. The MLBPA is seeking to allow players to “earn” a full year of service based upon their finishes in various awards voting and placements on Wins Above Replacement leaderboards. The union’s most recent offer would grant a full year of service to catchers and infielders who finish among the top seven in each league in their position’s WAR rankings; outfielders, starting pitchers and relief pitchers who land among the top 20 in their league by WAR at each position would also pick up a bonus year. That’s less comprehensive than previous union proposals, which would’ve granted a full year of service to catchers and infielders among the top 10 at their position and outfielders and pitchers among their league’s top 30. (Presumably, the union’s previous efforts to reward service time based on awards voting remains in place).
Basing service time off positional WAR rankings has its challenges. Teams have become increasingly flexible in deploying players all around the diamond, perhaps making it difficult to identify certain players’ “true” positions. That’s also the case in drawing a distinction between starters and relievers, particularly as teams have expanded their use of openers and true bullpen games to manage pitcher workloads and mitigate the times-through-the-order effect (where hitters tend to perform better after seeing the same pitcher multiple times in an outing). The league and union would also need to agree upon some form of WAR metric — whether by pulling directly from one website like FanGraphs or Baseball Reference, blending multiple public WAR figures together to create a composite number, or by fashioning one from scratch.
Finally, the union acquiesced (at least in concept) to a league initiative on service time manipulation. MLB’s most recent proposal included the possibility of teams receiving draft pick compensation as a reward for keeping top prospects on their roster for an entire season, if those players go on to hit certain thresholds in awards voting. Drellich tweets that the union is on board with the possibility of awarding extra draft selections to incentivize teams to put talented young players on their active roster, although the union’s proposal contained unspecified modifications to MLB’s vision.
Much about the MLBPA’s proposal this afternoon remains unchanged relative to past discussions. Bob Nightengale of USA Today writes that the parties remain significantly divided on issues like the lowest league minimum salary — the union is seeking $775K; MLB has offered $615K — and the next base luxury tax threshold, which the MLBPA is hoping to set at $245MM while MLB has proposed $214MM.
Given the relativity minor changes in the union proposal, it’s little surprise that general sentiment about the state of negotiations remains overwhelmingly negative. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that today’s talks were “heated.” Jeff Passan of ESPN suggests the prospect of starting Spring Training on time is now “in grave danger,” while Jon Heyman of the MLB Network calls it remote. Nightengale tweets that the parties are expected to meet again tomorrow but will limit those talks to issues outside of core economics.
I don’t think this next CBA is going to accomplish anything for the players. I keep hearing concessions from the union. I don’t know if it’s Clark or someone else doing the negotiation, but I have a feeling they’re gonna get screwed.
Clark isn’t doing the negotiations.
But given that MLB said 10M and the union said 105M, I don’t think going from 105 to 100 is much of a concession..
I think most people realize the union reducing their bonus pool demand by a whopping 4.7% was nothing more than a message to owners, of which I can’t translate here without my post getting flagged.
It’s like two people standing 100 feet apart, and one person agrees to walk 4 feet closer.
This lockout is sooooo going into May.
I don’t blame the players for not making any major concessions after the measly offers that the owners made last meeting. A $10M bonus pool for all pre arb players? And offset by making minimum salaries fixed, so teams can’t even throw them an few dollars extra? Players are just holding their ground.
Free Agents (especially Correa) don’t come crying when you sign your next contract for less money; and potentially pro-rated if games are lost during the season.
The union made a significant concession by lowering their bonus pool demand by 50% of the league’s offer.
At least May.
Anyone here care to give odds on the entire year being scrubbed?
I am not optimistic.
I still don’t understand who is responsible for paying these pre-Arb bonuses. Would it be the teams themselves or would it be the league? Also, I assume this extra pay would count against the CBT as well. If a team has a lot of talented pre-Arb players and the bonus pool is at $100M then it’s not out of the question that one team could have to pay these players up to $10M of this pool. If that counts against the CBT, I could see teams spending less on payroll to account for these potential payouts if they have a lot of young, talented players (think Toronto, Tampa, etc).
So this would work against the union in the long run.
I read that the bonus pool money comes from the central fund. Not sure if it counts against the tax threshold, but if it’s not paid by the team, maybe not. Anyway, it’s not a lot of money.
The whole idea is a goose chase, IMO. Owners view it as a substitute for moving the arb eligibility service time and they’ve tied it to making the minimum a fixed salary.
I’m wondering a little if the 2020 shortened season was an experiment for this year. They could have played more games in 2020, but didn’t. So, maybe the owners wanted to see what a really short season did to their bottom line.
Bonus pool money wouldn’t count against the LT, it would be no different than postseason shares which also don’t go against the LT.
MLB player salaries cannot be prorated without player consent. They consented for COVID and that is the first time ever. They won’t do it after being locked out.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who pays into any pool for the bonuses. team owners. don’t expect MLBPA to fund it 10c worth.
I’d like to see individual charity fundings of players and owners given some press clippings. Realize some give, but amounts would be nice.
field – You’re misunderstanding the concept of lockouts. The CBA is a labor contract between the entity known as MLB and the players union. Now that it’s expired and there’s a lockout, the players are essentially no longer employees and cannot in any way be controlled by MLB/owners and MLB/owners no longer have an obligation to pay the players.
It is very, very different from 2020 when a CBA was in place and had to be honored by both parties. Hope this helps.
How does this make any sense? The 2020 shortened season had zero fans. Plus the TV deal they had in place was guaranteed, whereas this year, Owners don’t get paid if games are cancelled. And lastly, if you want to know what 2020 did to their bottom line, look at the Braves financial report, it’s public record. Spoiler alert…they lost a ton of money. Real money, not just write-offs and the like for tax purposes.
@Fever Pitch Guy: That actually made me think of something in regards to the luxury tax. I wonder if the players would agree to the pool if the entire pool came out of the luxury tax. In other words, the teams who break the tax will have to pay a higher percentage so they can cover the $100 million bonus pool while the teams that don’t break the tax don’t have to contribute to it at all. In other words, the players get the full $100 million they are asking for but it comes from big spending teams in the form of penalties for spending more than the luxury tax. It would kind of be a catch 22. The players would get all of their money but on the flip side it would disincentive big free agent spending. My guess is the players wouldn’t like that but at the same time they are still getting their money. They would have to choose between the bonus pool or lesser luxury tax penalties. I’m sure it’s a choice they would rather not have to make but it would still be interesting to see what they choose. What do you guys think they would choose? An extra $100 million directly in their pocket every year from owners paying stiffer luxury tax fines? Or no stiffer luxury tax fines and no extra bonus pool money?
@Scott Kliesen: I agree. I read the Braves lost in the hundreds of millions in 2020 and they almost made it to the World Series. I imagine even the World Champion Dodgers lost a ton of money that year. The potential for another 2020 season is a big reason players don’t want to be paid based on revenue. They want their guaranteed money even if the owners lose money. That seems fine to me but what gets me is they still want a cut of the revenue during the years the owners do well. They want the reward for the good years while taking no risk on the bad years. If the don’t want to take any risk that makes them employees and not partners. That would mean they don’t really deserve any cut if the revenue. If you work on salary at a grocery store you still get paid if the store loses money but the caveat is you don’t get to demand more money on the years the store does well.
It’s the same thing with the television deals. The players association doesn’t help with the costs for broadcasting the games? Why would they get a cut of the broadcasting profits? They get there salaries and without helping with broadcasting they are essentially the same thing as an actor on a tv show. Actors get set salaries per episode. Players get set salaries per game. When a tv show does very well, the actors don’t get a bigger paycheck. Their paycheck stays the same regardless of how the show does. Then they can ask for a raise when their contract is up just like players can do the same when they hit free agency.
I don’t really get why people act as if the players should get a cut of the tv money. It doesn’t work that way with anything on television unless the people getting the cut are also paying to produce and broadcast. The players aren’t doing that. They don’t set up production. They don’t pay for the broadcasting. They don’t pay for the stadium. Why should they be paid any differently from the way television actors do?
Hammer – What if no teams have to pay the luxury tax in a particular year? Eventually the Dodgers and others might stop going over.
Hammer, why would players want to “disincentive big free agent spending?” No one makes teams sign a free agent.
Hammer, where are the players asking for a cut of broadcasting profits? They’re asking for a raise now that their contract is up. The fact that there is more money flowing into the game and they’re the product explains their request
Scott, so the losses during the 2020 season are an example of the risk owners have taken on. They lost money, and their response was to ask the players to be paid less to help offset these losses. Thats socializing losses and privatize gains. Put different, it’s wanting it both ways.
And players expect fully guaranteed contracts even when acts of God interfere with the business. Players want it both ways, too.
If the standard players contract doesn’t include an “acts of God” provision, isn’t that on the teams for not including one?
Also, the players didn’t get full-season salaries in the 2020 “act of God” year.
@ Fever Pitch: They would probably have to alter the way the luxury tax is done. It would have to be set up so that at least $100 million is spent every season. So maybe the top 20% of spenders pay the luxury tax every year or something. It actually might make the owners spend more money. If the top 20% of teams always cover the luxury tax that means some teams pay it every year so there is no set number to duck under. The money is going to come in no matter what so some teams might as well factor that in every year and just plan on it.
@gbs 42: Obviously the players would not want to disincentivize spending. But obviously they do want the additional (also unprecedented) $100 million given to them every year that wasn’t coming before. That’s kind of like someone saying “why would the owners want to give away an additional $100 million to pre-arb players when they never have before?” Clearly they don’t. It’s just both sides having to pick which choice benefits them the most if it were proposed that they had to pick one or the other.
The term “more money flowing into the game and they’re the product” is a pretty blanket generalization. Players were getting paid to play in front of stadiums before the game was broadcast. That’s how it has always been. Then a large number of people invested a bunch of time, effort and billions of dollars into broadcasting and production. The players did not help with that at all. For decades they have been happy collecting their paychecks while watching other people risk investing into media production. That money isn’t “flowing into the game.” It’s flowing into the camera equipment, microphones, studios, announcers, production companies, etc. that the players took no part in helping build. They aren’t producers. They are performers. As far as production and media are concerned baseball players are just like actors on tv. Nothing more.
Look at Jerry Seinfeld. At it’s peak, his show was the biggest show on television. He was one of the most famous people in the country. He was the product. People watched the show to watch him. The show was freaking named after him and him alone. What did he get paid at the hight of the show? A million bucks an episode. No matter what. It didn’t matter how many people watched. It didn’t matter what the production company made. If you don’t risk investing in that it’s really none of your business what the media production makes. He agreed to act on a show for a million bucks an episodes with the assumption that the media investors are going to try to profit off him.
Corey Seager just did the same thing when he signed his $325 million contract. He’s getting paid $325 million to be an actor on a stage. What revenue comes in through media is really none of his business because he didn’t invest in that media. Neither did any other player. The revenue that comes in through media clearly already boosts their contracts. Do you think anyone would pay Corey Seager $325 million to play in games that aren’t televised or in the radio? The fact that they are televised and on the radio is no thanks to him or any other player. It’s thanks to the people that began investing in that business decades ago while players just continued collecting their paychecks. Now that those investments are turning a profit, they’ve decided that since it’s successful they want a cut. If it wasn’t successful would they be offering to cover the losses those investors incurred? I strongly doubt it. That’s not how business works. You don’t get to watch someone else’s investment pay off and then ask them to treat you like a partner.
Really, the best way around all of this is for the players to accept a deal where they get a set percentage of the revenue every season. It will vary every year based on profits. They don’t want that though because they don’t want to risk making less on down years. That means they are employees, not partners. That means they are actors, not producers. If they refuse to ever inherit any risk the amount of money made through media or any other outlet is really none of their business.
Unless players start investing in the teams, the media and the production the profit made by people who do is none of their concern. They are people picking up a paycheck to do a job on the world stage regardless of financial outcome. They are just like Jerry Seinfeld or Miley Cyrus. If you want media profits invest in a media company. If you want ownership profits buy a team. If you want to do none of that and still want a paycheck be an employee and stop worrying about other people’s financial books. You can’t be treated like an employee on a guaranteed contract when things are going bad but then be treated like a fully invested partner when things are going good.
I don’t know for a fact, but for it to make sense, and for the players to be on board with it, I would think all teams pay equally into the pool, say $3M per team, $90M total pool, then it would behoove each team to put their best young players on the field as soon as, and as much as, possible in an effort to bring back as much of that pool money to their team as possible, while also theoretically putting the best talent on the field. It will cost each team the same “$3M” no matter what their particular players do.
As far as the CBT, maybe the “$3M” would count against it, maybe not, but I would have to think any compensation from the pool to a particular team’s players would NOT count against the CBT.
Jerry Seinfeld made more on his TV show than doing stand-up? Why? Because more people were watching the TV show that his stand-up act. His salary increased as the show’s popularity increased. Why? Because if he quit, there would be no #1-rated show. It would be replaced with something inferior, making NBC less money.
When “Friends” was at its peak, each of the six stars received $1M per episode. Why? It was the biggest show on TV, and it made NBC lots of money. Without those six, a lower-rated show would fill in. Those six were leveraging their skills/popularity to maximize income.
Owners pay players to play/perform for the fans in person and on TV. The best players get more because they are more successful/popular. The players aren’t asking for “a cut.” They’re leveraging their skills to maximize their incomes.
“Players were getting paid to play in front of stadiums before the game was broadcast.” Yes, they were getting paid a fraction of what they now make and were tied to their team by the reserve clause. Then they unionized and fought for better working conditions, and that tug-o-war continues today.
Should owners be rewarded for their investments with profits? Absolutely. Should players be compensated commensurate with what their skills bring to the game? Absolutely. We’ll find out in a few days/weeks/months what that agreed-upon compensation is.
They did in 2021 even though attendance was severely impacted in the early months of the season.
10 million is the owners equivalent of the middle finger. My guess is they land at 50 million with incremental increases to 75 million at the end of the agreement
Hammer, you do realize that actors have a union as well and they negotiated for royalties years ago. Jerry Sinfeld has made over $400 million on reruns alone.
@Scott Nielsen: exactly. In 2020 the players weren’t just paid “commensurate with what their skills bring to the game.” Their skills brought a net loss of billions of dollars to the game and they were still paid handsomely. You know what their skills don’t bring to the game? Anything to do with broadcasting. They have never helped with that at all. The reason I bring up broadcasting is players frequently talk about how that should be included in team revenue and they should get a piece of that pie. #1. That’s clearly already happening and #2. What did they ever do to help make sure their games could even be broadcast? Other people invested a lot to make that possible. The players didn’t.
When individual players sign contracts for a set amount that is them hitting free agency and deciding if they are willing to play for that amount. The union doing that as a group after individual players like Corey Seager have already made their personal decision is really more about representatives, agents and lawyers trying to squeeze every dime they can out of the owners to feed their own salary. As far as I’m concerned every player under contract has decided they want to be employees at that salary. It doesn’t really matter what Tony Clark or anyone else says.
It’s a slanted and unfair system because the thousands players are allowed to band together and say none of them will play unless they all get some goal in mind. If the owners do that it is considered collusion. Owners can’t join forces but players can? They should either both be able to or none be able to. Ideally it would be none. Players would hit free agency individually (as they do now) and decide their own terms without having to then be forced to agree with all the thousands of other players for the CBA.
If one player wants to play under his current contract with a team he should be able to regardless of what anyone else says or thinks about it. Regardless of a “Collective Bargaining Agreement.” The players already made their own personal bargaining agreement. There is really no need to bargain collectively. If they don’t want to work under the circumstances, don’t show up. Some might not but some will. Leave it at that.
Corey Seager just signed for $325 million over 10 years. His salary is not going to go up or down regardless of the CBA. He clearly wants to play for that exact amount of money. It’s his signature on that contract. What anyone else thinks or wants should not factor in at all. The same is true for any player that signs a contract to play for a specific salary over a specific period of time. Instead we have a bunch of already wealthy lawyers trying to squeeze their own salary out by negotiating like Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. If Corey Seager wants to play for $325 million (which he clearly does) it shouldn’t matter Tony Clark or anyone else has to say or think about it.
“the thousands players are allowed to band together and say none of them will play unless they all get some goal in mind. If the owners do that it is considered collusion.”
The CBA – the Collective Bargaining Agreement – is between the roughly 1200 players and the 30 ownership groups. Each side is banding together to try to achieve that goal. There’s no collusion, and both sides can do this.
With this and your assumption about how the pre-arb bonus pool would inflate a few players’ salaries massively, you’re just making things up.
Yeah but collective bargaining is, like, communism, and employers having all the power, is like, deal with it dude.
If a season is played that means either a new CBA has been agreed upon or the previous one was extended another year.
If either happens, then the players contracts are still in force. That means they get paid 100% of the amount they are contracted for regardless of the length of the season in number of games.
That has been in every CBA since the very first one and only one time have the players agreed to be paid less than 100%. That was in the pandemic shortened 2020 season.
Even then, the players have a $500 million case pending at the NLRB against the owners for shortening the 2020 season to just 60 games when they players had presented a plan to play 130. According to most federal labor law experts, there is a pretty good chance they win, too
Option A: owners negotiate and we have agreement on March 31st.
Option B: the owners decide to go nuclear, their way or the hiway and the lockout is indefinite. No negotiations whatsoever until the union caves
@MC Homer: Initially, I thought the 2 sides might be able to be mature and be reasonable with each other like the other top sports. At this point, I am really hoping for option B. Rip the Band-Aid off quickly and fix it once and for all, otherwise we will just be going through this crap again 5 years from now.
The MLBPA is always against a salary cap even it there is a salary floor no matter what. The NFL, NBA and NHL have proven that the players will eventually be willing to play under a salary cap as long as there is a floor. If there is going to be a work stoppage just go ahead and make it the work stoppage to end all work stoppages. Pool the MLB money together. Every team has to spend around $200 million a year. Not much more. Not much less. Every team profits the same every year so the new York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will both make and spend about the same amount every year. It works in other sports. If the players don’t want it, screw em. The new players will be fine with it just like NFL, NBA and NHL athletes. The players as a whole.make more money overall that way anyhow. If there is going to be a work stoppage, I don’t care how long it is. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. If the players are going to refuse to sign you might as well get a salary cap/Flor out of it like every other league. Otherwise, call their bluff and let the ones who are so concerned about that take a hike. It will be better for the future of the sport just like it has been for every sport. Some teams spend $50 million and some teams spend $280 million. If there is going to be a work stoppage anyway, you might as well end that crap right now.
How is a salary floor & cap better for every sport? MLB has had a larger number of champions in the last 15-20 years than the NFL, NBA, or NHL. Just because other leagues have it doesn’t mean it’s better that way.
“The players as a whole make more money overall that way anyhow.” Is there evidence to prove this is true? We don’t know what players in other sports may have negotiated if they hadn’t accepted a floor/cap.
Regardless, we’ll be going through this crap again in five years, just like the other leagues when their agreements expire.
The owners should modify their proposal from $30M to $25M, for wasting their time with that 105–>100M offer.
The owner’s proposal is $10m not $30m. That offer reduction from $105m to $100m was already a message to MLB that is saying f u for not even budging on anything. It will likely end up at $55 or $60m but all this is just stupid showmanship for now. At this point if the owner’s don’t start moving closer to the player’s ask I almost hope the player’s hold out.
This is what I was talking about in my last post on this subject. The MLBPA has everyone distracted with whether or not $105 million is a reasonable number to spread around for top tier pre-arbitration players. That is totally besides the point. Once the players who receive those bonuses hit arbitration, the money they receive will not come from that pool. It will come from the team payroll. Their arbitration salaries will also be a lot higher because of their pre-arbitration raises. There are already players projected to make over $20 million AAV during arbitration when their pre-arb salaries were less than $600k. How high do you think those arbitration salaries are going to get when they are making millions before they even get to arbitration? It’s not just about the $105 million. It’s about the millions more their raises will be after they get those bonuses and then hit arbitration. Some teams won’t even be able to afford to keep their own players. Imagine if you are the Cleveland Guardians with an entire team payroll of around $50 million. Then imagine the arbitration system now says one of your players is owed a salary of $30-40 million. That’s more than half your team payroll going to one player. God forbid you have two of them.
This is nonsensical.
Hammer, these are bonuses. Arb increases would continue to be based on base salary.
Saying otherwise is not legit, so please quit.
@gbs: I hope you are right but we don’t know how the system is going to be set up. I know in the arbitration system every player always makes more than they did the previous year, even if they have a terrible season. The only exception is when a player is injured and doesn’t play the whole year. Even then his salary stays the same and never goes down. I have a hard time believing someone could hit a bunch of bonuses and make millions more than their salary one year and then have their pay decrease once they hit arbitration. I really don’t think the system is going to be set up for players to potentially make less money in arbitration than they did in their pre-arb years.
Teams have the option of releasing arbitraion-eligble and pre-arb players and either not paying them or re-signing them for a lesser amount. No team is forced to offer arbitration to a player, so if the team doesn’t think he’s worth the price tag, cut him.
He’s too legit to quit.
Sorry … couldn’t help myself.
The owners started at zero. The owners then waited 43 days after the lockout to respond to the players last proposal of $105 million and offered $10 million. Dropping it $5 million is more like flipping the owners the bird. “See, we can make ridiculous proposals, too.”
I support the owners! If the players want to forfeit the entire season, LET THEM DO IT, for all I care at this point. Longtime baseball fan here (Corey Patterson being my favorite all time player).
Eric, not being snide here, but I would like to know why you support the owners.
It seems many people are viewing this CBA negotiation from the standpoint that the previous one was fine, so why not keep things as they are. The owners have made massive gains against the players in the last 2-3 CBAs, the players finally realize that, and they want to swing the pendulum back in their direction.
My view is rebalancing things closer to where they were 15-20 years ago is a reasonable goal. I know others view things quite differently.
650,000 minimum salary for throwing and hitting a ball and running in circles and lifetime benefits after 1 month on a MLB roster. Tired of the tone-deaf greedy players at this point.
Eric, thank you for your reply. I’d like to comment on your responses, not assault them. I prefer a friendly exchange vs. the name-calling often seen here, so I’m glad we’re both being civil.
It’s a $10-$11B industry annually, so the money’s going somewhere, either players or owners. The players have gotten a smaller and smaller percentage of that money the last 15-20 years. They would like to stop/reverse that trend.
The new minimum salary is still being negotiated, with the owners’ proposals not keeping up with revenue growth or even inflation.
Players don’t get lifetime benefits until they have 10 years of service time.
The owners, whose revenues/salaries are not disclosed, seem to be just as tone-deaf and greedy.
Pension and lifetime benefits after just 43 days on a MLB roster. 2 years of minimum salary is more than most will earn in an entire lifetime and even the ones who was out after a couple of years have already earned more than most will earn in an entire lifetime, to go along with the lifetime benefits. Don’t care if the raises aren’t keeping up. The owners are the owners and own the means of production and provide a place for them to play their little game.
My mistake. Players don’t get *full* pension benefits until after 10 years. After 43 days, they get $9k per year.
Comparing the MLB minimum to regular Joes is irrelevant. Our society has deemed pro athletes as deserving of accolades and financial rewards, so they make big money. The owners also make big money, though the specifics aren’t shared with the fans like player salaries are.
Owners don’t own the means of production (the players) in this industry. Calling it “their little game” demeans and diminishes the players’ contribution. If that’s the case, this is the owners’ “little game,” too.
Teams tried to use replacement players in 1995, and that failed miserably. Fans want to see the best of the best, so those players have significant value.
We’re obviously going to continue to disagree. Let’s hope there are games to watch in the near future.
Last I checked “their little game” is the one we fans pay to watch. Maybe you don’t care if you see the best of the best playing, but that’s what most of us are paying to watch. The owners decide on how much they will pay free agents and they are allowed to collude to make rules that discourage them from paying what the market would bear for them. How much sweeter does this deal need to get for ownership?
More like ‘let’s hope there aren’t games to watch at any point at all in the future’, if you really think about it, Just tank the entire thing already.
Putin can infiltrate Cooperstown, for all I care at this point (only Cooperstown, nowhere else). Just tank the entire thing and kids can still play it if they want to (most of them DON’T want to).
Yea, all they are doing is “throwing and hitting a ball”. Trouble is only a tiny little minority of humans on the planet can do it at that level, Thus, that ability to hit and throw a ball at those levels generates excitement from people we call fans, who watch the games and ultimately shovel BILLIONS into the coffers. They sure as hell deserve a decent part of that pie.
This isn’t 1882 where the ownership class basically creates indentured servants out of their employees, society has progressed.
Let them play in Mauritania. Just get rid of the thing already. Americans hate it anyway. They really could entirely tank MLB at this point and I’m sure (and you also know deep down) that it would be for the better.
Or maybe it hasn’t progressed as much as we would like to believe.
Buh bye Eric. You won’t be missed.
The players dropped the ball over the last 2-3, trying to make up for a large portion of that in a single round of bargaining seems unrealistic. I suppose it’s subjective whether or not that’s what they’re doing here (it is my opinion that they are).
I don’t really support either side in this argument, since I don’t have any actual stake in the outcome, I’ll leave it up to the parties that do, to decide what is and isn’t acceptable to them. However, from how I see it, it comes off as the players being slightly less realistic in their asks. Generally speaking, I find it pretty annoying that both parties feel the need to do this posturing as much in the public eye as they are.
Which party put in the money and effort to grow the sport and infrastructure to the point that it was able to convince people to shove those billions of dollars into their coffers?
Bragging about muting people on here too eh?
well yeah. You gotta remember, most of the union members are not make the 100 million dollar contracts. They are mostly dudes making close to le a guess minimum. The billions can just sit back, smoke cigars and let the players see their paychecks disappear. The owners will always win.
“League Minimum” I’m sure they will be able to afford all the cigars they want getting that much money.
There is one way the players could get some decent concessions, and that’s to hold out until July. Sure it would be painful for them this year, but it’s like bodybuilding … no pain, no gain.
They should actually hold out the whole season — would be bold af but owners showed that they don’t care about anything other than playoffs — owners won’t make significant concessions till they have to fork over the ridiculous amount of money back to national tv providers
So you suggest players hold out a whole year, but at what cost? How many of these young MLB players have financial obligations which are dependent on them earning their MLB salary? How many players going bankrupt is acceptable in order to “win” the negotiation?
Most, if not all, of the Owners on the other hand can patiently wait for the internal pressure the players (and their wives) will put on their own negotiators to get a deal done.
You’re really not thinking this through clearly.
You gotta remember that the owners carry ALL of the risk. They invested their money. If attendance is down, they absorb the loss. If salaries get out of hand, it cuts into their expenses.
It’s such a weird board here. I’ve never seen so many people weep over the 0.001% that are MLB Players. Sure, an owner may be wealthier than the players but let’s be clear – this is squabbling between the rich/insanely rich against the insanely rich.
In a perfect world NEITHER group would get the money they get. The insane costs and income demands by both parties ultimately hurt you and me. The game would be better off if both players and owners took a 20% hit to their income and returned that to the fans and their communities. Imagine living in a world where games were affordable, a jersey didn’t cost the same as your rent, and having a hot dog was cheaper than eating at a 5-star restaurant. Think of the good the money would do if it was reinvested into the community to build more ballparks, buy more uniforms, and provide outreach to those youth who are most vulnerable.
I doubt the owners or players would miss 20% in the grand scheme of things but they could change the lives of millions across the country. AND create so much goodwill that cities would be fighting to have a major league club in their midst. Baseball would be revitalized and fans would flock to the game.
you gotta remember that the baseball started with no owners.
Well said bjs
Bob Nutting, an owner of a team that has been one of the worst teams in all of baseball as long as he’s been the owner. Guessing they’ve had some of the worst attendance in the league, and Nutting isn’t absorbing any ‘Loss’ imo.
bjs, I can’t believe anyone would weep over the 0.0001% that are MLB owners.
ALL the risk? Do they risk career-ending injuries? Have franchise values done anything other than skyrocket over time?
Both sides have it very good. Both sides want to get/keep as big a cut of the pie as possible.
You are worth what somebody is willing to pay in America. The fans they could stop watching on TV, stop going to games, and stop buying the merchandise. That would tell the owners everything is too expensive. However most of us are still going to buy our game packages, we will buy tickets to the game and have concessions, we will buy merchandise. So why should owners drop prices? The players want an equitable cut of the total revenue which they deserve they are the product. In the NBA 49% of all revenue generated by the league must be spent on payroll. MLBPA has to negotiate something like that into it’s CBA. The NBA players can thank Chris Paul for negotiating that.
What risk? You and I pay for everything. We bought those stadiums and paid for all the infrastructure to make playing games there possible.. We watch the TV and buy products from the advertisers that pay for 2/3 of the revenue in baseball. We buy the tickets, parking, and concessions that make up another 30% of revenue. Because MLB is a monopoly, the owners are GUARANTEED to make a profit when they sell their team. The owners take exactly ZERO risk.
In a perfect world, the owners would not have a government protected monopoly and the free market would set salaries. Considering the amount of revenue that comes in, players would make much, much more than they do now.
The owners have a consitently appreciating asset and have long term revenue streams that allow them to budget years in advance. Their actual risk is nil. The real risk are for the players who spend years being one throw or false step away from an injury so catastrophic that they no longer can do their job.
Isn’t it fun to tell other people what to do with their money?
I think it would be nice if you took 20% of your income and gave it to the local food pantry. In the grand scheme of things, I could care less if you miss it because I’ll feel better that you spread your wealth around to those less fortunate.
Here’s a novel idea, why don’t we encourage everyone to use their gifts and talents to the best of their ability to earn as much as the market will bear, and then encourage them to share a portion of it to whatever causes pull at their heartstrings?
Your suggestion is akin to putting a gun to someone and demanding they give you their money so you can do with it what you please, whereas mine encourages both success and sacrifice. See the difference?
Nonsense. What risk is there in guaranteed profits through the media deals? Where is the risk in having zero competition?
It’s a fraud to juxtapose the “baseball’ market with an actual free market. It’s not. These owners sure as hell took no risks. They just spent a lot of money for another shiny toy.
Comparing baseball ownership to something like inventing the automobile, putting your money and toil into that hopeful product with the REAL risk of losing all you have is folly.
Do you think baseball just magically became the multi billion dollar industry that it is?
When the players own their own business, they can call the shots also. Until then, they will have to settle for being millionaires for playing a game 6 months out of the year. Owner vs player (employee). That’s the way it works.
You think they only play 6 months out of the year. How quaint. The players have offseason workouts, preseason training, not to mention being sent to other leagues as they are breaking into the league at the teams’ whim. I’m not saying we should feel sorry for them, but to think they don’t put in insane amounts of time to compete at the highest level shows a lack of awareness. Not to mention, all this money being generated above and beyond the combined contracts of all MLB player contracts show the talent creates a healthy profit for the owners.
They play actual games that count for 6 months. Yes, they have to workout, although some don’t appear to do much of that. Yes, they have to practice, batting, fielding. You mean, you get paid for taking batting practice, and fielding, sign me up. Sorry, that’s a privilege, not what most working Americans would consider work.
The owners reap the financial benefits of crowds at spring training games, and especially playoff games, yet the players don’t get paid for spring training and make a relatively small amount for playoff games.
Do you get paid when you attend training sessions? Many people do. if it’s part of the job requirements, it should be compensated.
Think you need to review the definition of concession.
I want to buy your house. You are asking $500k. I will offer you $100k. A real concession would not be bumping my offer to $105k. I’m still negotiating in bad faith in that example.
Likewise, the owners aren’t really moving the needle with luxury tax thresholds or minimums.
Both sides need to suck it up and reach reasonable compromises. To date, neither party has been wholly reasonable.
Wow! You didn’t even read the article, did you? Come back after you have.
@Phillies Maybe you should figure out who is doing the negotiating before commenting about the negotiations. Better yet, read the articles by Drellich and Passan so you have at least some idea about what is going on.
The player’s union asked for something unprecedented in a pool of money for non-arbitration eligible players, then they lowered their ask by 5% from $105 million to $100 million after the owners went from ZERO at the beginning of the negotiations to $10 million. So who made the bigger concession?
Considering the players already conceded on some service time issues which is the equivalent of what the owners did here, the players did.
In the realm of things threy are really ar.guing about air… A million here a few million there.. Its all about how to hurt the other side.. When they have hurt each other enough they will get together and get back to earning the billions $$$$ that they are trying to divide up…
Those rich bast-ards…
@phillies
Screwed? Great pay. Best benefits, a Pension! Only have to work part of the year! Possibility of retiring by 40. I doubt GM workers are worried that GM is making money. They’re probably more concerned that if GM doesn’t make money, they may get laid off.
I always thought Manfred looked like that little dude from space Jam
This is exactly why baseball keeps losing fans cause owners and players alike are too greedy. They both make more money then they deserve it costs a fortune to take your whole family to a game and look at the way they keep treating as fans. Baseball is number 3 in sports in America and cause of this lockout its going to get worse. But they don’t give a crap either side if they lose money they’ll find a way to screw as fans to make that money back latter.
Neither MLB / MLBPA will get everything they want in a new CBA. That’s called negotiating.
MLB / MLBPA / Commissioner just get the job done so the fans can enjoy the national pastime … baseball, see their favorite teams and players, and read about all the rumors, signing of free agents and trades.
Should we just assume there’s no baseball this year?
Looking more and more likely.
That would never happen. You’ve got some fans who accepted 2020’s 60-game schedule and viewed it as a real season, I think that’s the worst-case scenario this year.
If that happens again, then I’ll call it now…Marlins have a shot again!
Marlins winning the World Series this time in 5 games over the Orioles.
We’ll be 35-25 this year.
I loved the 60-game season in 2020 and respected the MLB and players for getting it done. That being said, if they do another 60-game season because they can’t settle the CBA issues, I’m not watching. Completely different circumstances.
2020 was nothing but a sham with MLB. It will go down in history with an asterisk.
2020 was an asterisk for reasons that go beyond sports. The season and the playoffs were more difficult than they’ve ever been. Sure they’ll be an asterisk, but not because it was a sham. Dodgers championship was well earned in one of the hardest seasons ever. Also let’s be year, it’s not like the Dodgers wouldn’t have won the division in a 162 game season. I don’t understand the complaints.
*year=real
The 60 game season has been the most exiting season i seen in a while. Baseball season is way too long it should be 100 games keep the 60 game postseason universal DH stop giving charity to the so called small market teams or just get rid of those teams or move them to cities that actually appreciate baseball.
Or the WS in a 162 game season. The Dodgers routinely have the best or 2nd best roster in baseball. It was about time they got a ring. It wasn’t like the Marlins snuck in the playoffs and won the WS.
On paper—I sure would’ve taken the Dodgers roster over the Braves w/o Soroka and Acuna. If anything I think it helps validate the short season that the team w the best roster won. Because ultimately the playoffs are a crapshoot. It
yes…yes you should
Well! They’re $5 million closer, so now only $90 million apart! At that rate, they can agree in only 18 more proposals, or by August, 2027!
I’m supportive of the players in their efforts to be better compensated, but a $5 mil reduction when there’s a $95 mil gap in the bonus pool system is utterly ridiculous and not serious. What are they thinking, the owners will come up $5 mil next month and that this will go back and forth every 3 or 4 weeks?
Stuff like this makes me want the 2022 season to be canceled.
The union is barely budging, no wonder the owners are yelling at them. This is a pitiful charade of two sides that don’t even know what they want. Both sides have much divisiveness, the haves and the have-nots. The wealthy players want to keep their $300 million contracts rolling in and the wealthy owners want to keep squashing the smaller franchises. Both sides are divided and conquered. No season this year. Pffft.
Nah, @hayzee.
Too much money is involved. They will figure something out. May not start on time. But: we will have baseball. Same thing I said before 2020.
Nobody likes to just piss money away.
Nobody.
Yes, they will figure something out, you’re right. But it won’t solve anything, they will just kick the can down the road. And further damage the game of baseball.
And Scherzer can still collect his $14,000 per pitch thrown!
That’s pretty much the way of the world though.
I don’t have lifetime arrangements with my sales guys & building tradesman, uh? & we deal with merely 5 & 6 figure deals. But: splitting up money can be contentious. It seems to me, that the more loot involved the higher the level of contention gets.
However: every spring, I get up with my guys & we hammer out an accord. Not quite the same as what MLB is mired in. We’re talking a couple of beers to work out new arrangements/ percentages/rates. The reality though is the same thing. We don’t figure it out nobody makes anything. That seems to provide the proper motivation.
Not only am I incredibly good looking, I am also an effective communicator.
Except it will be more per pitch. Scherzer’s contract is guaranteed. He gets every penny whether they play 162 or 81 games.
Players won’t be receiving full salary in the event of a strike. Otherwise there is no incentive for players to get a deal done quickly and gives them all the leverage.
The only thing damaging baseball are the ridiculous rules being implemented for the sole purpose of shortening the game so low attention span viewers will watch.
they still don’t watch.
Ducky, having a bunch sales people reporting to me is my idea of hell. But then, having a bunch of mathematicians reporting to you is probably your idea of hell. To each his own.
At least we’re both good looking.
And pretty darned humble too, I might add, Ducky.
Think we’ll see some ballgames by May? I agree it will get done but the over/under dates are getting scary.
Thanks for noticing that, @Lenny. You’d be surprised at how few people realize that about me.
May 1?
Man. Dunno. They seem pretty far apart. But by end of turkey season (05/31) I would definitely put $$ on MLB games by then. Almost everyone took it in the shorts in ’20 one way or another. I think that’ll add some urgency to the “negotiations” or whatever they really are.
Even though there ain’t much to talk about, it’s good to see you on the board. It’s 4° right now. Bet you’re not missing that very much.
Yeah, they can be a handful, serious.
I have found it’s actually easier to keep a dozen Marines in line than it is to keep a dozen sales guys squared away. & I don’t say that lightly. At the same time, they are pretty integral to having a good season. But, yeah. Personality…quirks – shall we say – are wide spread.
Talented too.
Well I didn’t expect to see snow again but I sure did Saturday morning. Didn’t stick at all. Got some dusting on the palm trees though which was odd.
We were considering driving to Tampa to catch a game or two next month but that is off the table. Hotels down there near the complex are charging spring training rates even though there may not be games.
I keep up with the area as I stream my Twin Cities Newstalk radio show each morning.
@ducky. You crack me up man! You are one of a handful of Yankees fan commenters that I actually enjoy reading what you have to say.
Man.
& here I thought I’d seen snow on every type of tree there is. Snow on palm trees quite the image.
Heh.
Thanks, @McGriff. The Braves guys – for whatever reason – have always been really decent, classy, & engaging with me. Yourself included. It was pretty easy for me to be happy for you guys winning the series.
Let’s have a Yankee/Brave rematch this October.
The players have not gone out on strike. They are locked out by the owners. Once the season starts, whatever length it is, the players will get paid 100% of what they were contracted to get for a season. They are not paid by the game, they are paid by the season.
Most owners would be better off not paying any players and cancelling the season v paying a full 162 game seasons worth of salaries and getting 80 games. That simply won’t happen.
Well the first time I moved to NC was ’96. All the new neighbors were Braves fans and then Len—– a Yankee moves in with flags hung on the porch, whole nine yards. What a glorious October that was!
So then I am in MN last year and give up some great weather 25 years later to move back to NC (this time to the coast) to help recreate that magic. The Braves made it. We didn’t. Despite my big sacrifice! Now I am stuck with no baseball and only beach days to look forward to. And low taxes. And…………..
lol
Taxes out here are so brutal.
& it has only gotten worse since you left. Made it through 2020 intact? Congrats! Here are some higher taxes as your “reward,”
As a parting gift, I (involuntarily) surrendered my cat converter right outside our apartment building off 494 near EBush Lk in the middle of the day. Yes I had to drive that vehicle about 1500 miles to get here with weeks to find a new cat converter. (they are backlogged half a year) but got lucky and found one. Hey I am from NJ so I am used to taxes but in a northern state like MN? I was shocked.
Are your business taxes at least reasonable there?
Shortages of everything right now, Lenny.
Really basic stuff too. Like plywood, shingles, nails(!), etc. Never seen anything like it, man. It’s like trying to build in Honduras or something.
I get taxed at the highest rate. Which – hey – is actually a good thing & I am grateful.
But I get gouged, bro. Significantly. Most of the time it pays for things I’m kind of opposed to as well. My son graduates High School this spring. I feel my days in MN are numbered, in no small part due to the taxes. Won’t go far though (the Dakota’s or maybe the Driftless Area in IA). I like it out here. (Even with today’s -30° wind chill).
@whyhayzee – more like the haves and the have-mores.
Stupid rich people always ruin everything.
That is sad. You got everything exactly backwards. The players want to get more money to younger players that DON’T make $300 million and cut down on revenue sharing if teams like Pittsburg are not spending that revenue sharing on players salaries and the owners want to continue giving revenue sharing to the smaller market teams regardless of whether they spend it on players or not.
Huh? The have-nots are the players who barely have careers and make a small percentage of what the big boys make. Other than raising the minimum salary, there is no helping them. But that’s the way it is in every walk of life. The problem is the ludicrous amount of money the big boys make because of the pyramid scheme of player salary where wealthy teams bid way beyond reality to gobble up those chips. In no world is Cole worth $300+ million except baseball. That’s messed up. Only a handful of teams will spend ridiculous money, which means the have-not franchises are easily outbid by the haves. The revenue sharing, which the wealthy teams hate, might improve the situation. Forcing teams to spend when the best players are not available to them is silly.
This article is about the players asking for a pool of $100 million to pay pre-arbitration eligible players. The lowest paid players in MLB. Most of which make major league minimum.
MLB made $12 billion in revenue while paying out just $4 billion for player salaries and benefits. The owners can afford to both pay the younger players more and pay the superstars.
I am not sure if you have noticed, but the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers are not the only teams giving players $20-$30 million per season. The Padres have two $30 million players and 2 more that make $20 million. The Blue Jays have Springer. at $29 million this season. The Tigers have a $32 million player and $24 million player. Rangers have $33 million and a $26 million players. The Phillies, Braves, and Cardinals all have a couple of those size deals on the roster. Then there is the highest spending team of all, the Mets.
Players are paid for two things. How much they contribute to each win on the field, and how many behinds they put in seats or in front of a TV. Scherzer is a better players and is contributes to more team wins than say Trevor Megill, a pre-arbitration eligible starting pitcher. There is no doubt that huge number more people will buy a ticket or watch a game to see Scherzer pitch than to see Tyler Megill make a start.
What he said was not quadratic polynomials. It’s simple math. Scherzer makes the team more money, so he is worth being paid more money.
Guys nominate me for next MLBPA Rep I’ll have this settled in no time
We’ll see.
Happy Black History month.
I’m confident there will be Major League Baseball this year. There’s too much money at stake, on both sides, to lose an entire season.
Replacement Players, they (MLB and MLBPA) are going to screw the pooch and we are going to get Replacement Players. God I hate that thought.
Kevin Millar is already in the batting cage, ready for the call to come be a replacement player … again.
And his face STILL won’t be in the video games. Poor guy. What was his fake name in MLB the show?
And Bonds! He wasn’t in the games either… I forget for what reason though.
Bonds opted out of allowing the MLBPA to license his name and likeness.
They tried replacement players in 1995. The NLRB ruled it illegal. So that’s not happening.
The NLRB doesn’t have the power to declare anything illegal. It can ask a Federal Court to issue an injunction which it obtained from the Federal District Court of Southern New York in 1995. The temporary injunction was issued by future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
No need for “replacement” players. Just bring up all the AAA guys and they will happily play 7 months for $500,000 for the first year. Lock the cry babies out and not pay them anything. Then they can go out and try and get a real full year job for maybe $40k.
AAA players, or any other players in the minors for that matter, will not play. They would be black listed as scabs. Though this is a lock out, not a strike so replacement players aren’t a thing anyway.
No they won’t — if they do they get locked out of the union permanently
Let’s put this silly talk about replacement players to rest.
First, it is almost certain to be found illegal by the NLRB and then a federal court unless they lift the lockout first. They can not lock out the players who are under contract and then replace them.
The 1995 ruling was actually a strike, but the owners declared an “impasse” and then unilaterally implemented their own terms including a salary cap, elimination of arbitration, and abolishing the anti collusion provisions of the CBA. When the players didn’t agree, they were set to use replacement players.
The court ruled that they were not bargaining in good faith. Using replacement players while players under contract are locked out is a non starter, legally.
It’s also a complete non starter with fans, who wouldn’t pay to see replacement players. It would be about the most offensive thing that MLB could do to it’s product.
The 1995 ruling ordered the terms of the previous agreement to remain in effect pending resolution of CBA talks and further mediation. Removing the threat of replacement players led to baseball being played, without a CBA, for most of two seasons.
Since they’d have to lift the lockout, the players could report, and then strike in August. They didn’t in 1995, but they could have.
Owners would be happy enough to keep the old CBA, but there’s a problem in that it expressly ends any luxury tax on 12/1/21. So there’s that.
I’m not sure replacement players are in the mix here. That can only happen in a player strike. Management can’t lock oit players and then bring in replacement players. At least that’s my understanding.
Here is a thought that will make you smile. The owners will get paid nothing for national TV broadcasts if they try to bring in scabs. They can’t afford to do that since that is a HUGE portion of their revenue.
We will see in 20 years the damage they have brought to the sport.
Great to see both sides doing what’s best for their own greed and not what’s best for the fans in all 30 (soon to be 32) markets.
And to think that many baseball lovers like myself wonder why MLB lost being the top sport to the NFL and continues to lose younger fans to the NBA and some of the other sports…ahem,,,you know…the leagues with Cap&Floor systems, and that are not impacted much by market size. You know, the sports that have success in markets that MLB struggles in.
“Well, we’ll show him, especially for that purple monkey dishwasher remark!”
Not sure why everyone is getting worked up.
Spring training is too long, and the owners dont make any money from it. The players dont really want to do it. They come in in good shape. Pitchers get all kinds of opportunities to build up their arms at various training facilities.
In 2020 spring training was only 23 days with lots of uncertainty surrounding it.
They will practice brinkmanship until March 1, then come to an agreement a week later, and shorten spring training. Not a big deal.
Heck, a later start may even help the Jays. They might even be able to play at home to start a slightly delayed season.
And in 2020 and 2021 arm injuries and poor hitting were rampant. ST is necessary for pitchers to have the proper time to get lengthened out for the season and for hitters to gain their timing. Plus, ST is necessary to get rosters filled out.
Stop being reasonable when we’re all trying to worry about something that has no affect on our lives other than being a source of entertainment.
I am now optimistic that the season will begin on time. Then again, I’m also on my third martini and it’s only 3:30.
Use of WAR is problematic. If they go that route, it would make sense, at a minimum, for MLB and the MLBPA to agree on their own WAR, which certainly can be built off the existing models, but then encase it in amber so both sides know what they’re dealing with. No matter, the problem is WAR undervalues relievers, so my fear is it will further the push toward reducing innings by starters, increase the use of openers, and overall push more innings toward the bullpens. I’m sure the Rays are building computer models right now to keep their costs low. Remember, many things fans dislike in baseball now were popularized by the Rays, from shifts, to openers, to bullpenning. They also have intelligently manipulated revenue sharing to get other teams to pay for their payroll while not caring about increasing fan attendance and engagement. Evil, thy name is Rays.
Agree with you on WAR. But I’ll go a step further.
Agree on a pooled amount. Agree on basic parameters (how many people are eligible, flat rate or graduated expenses, etc) Then let the MLBPA administer the pool as they see fit. If they choose to calculate WAR one way and the players don’t like it, they can ask the Union to change it. So long as the requested changes fit within the broad parameters that the league agreed to, they could change it every year if they wanted.
I still firmly believe that the owners don’t care much about how the money is distributed. Their goal is to control the amount to keep their expenses in check. If the Union rules decide to pay Vlad $10M out of the pot or just float him $1M, that is their call.
I believe once they have the parameters in place for the major pieces, then they can start moving toward consensus numbers. So while they are far apart on the player pool number, both sides have agreed to the concept. That will make it easier to come to an agreement. Same with the luxury tax. Other aspects they don’t even have agreement on yet.
The owners want more teams in the postseason and they want an international draft. Those are two huge gets for the owners. So far I haven’t seen any gets on the players side that would make it worth them giving the owners those two items. The players also need to be careful with the terms of an international draft. All it will do is incentivize losing teams to tank even more if they structure it like the amateur draft.
The owners are going to have to offer up some huge concessions to get expanded playoffs. A 14 team playoff would add nearly a half BILLION to the owners coffers in TV money alone. They will have to give the players a big chunk of that money to get them to agree to expanded playoffs. Right now player don’t get paid to play in the playoffs. A pool is given to each team made up of 30% of the gate of the games they play in. Most of that goes to players, but some goes to trainers and coaches and clubhouse managers, etc… The MLBPA asked for some big changes and in return offered to allow a 12 team playoff with the WC expanded to a 3 game series. But the owners won’t get even that without conceding some of the other points.
Problems with the whole bonus pool idea are much greater than the formula to determine how these 20- 30 players will get their bonuses.
The funds would come from central revenue, not from teams. That’s not an issue.
But owners see it as a substitute to how pre- arbitraiton players get more money. Players still want to move the eligibility cutoff back to 2 years. They’d probably settle for 2.5 years, which is just 30 days less than the current super 2 cutoff of 2.116.
Owners are also proposing that the minimum salary also be a fixed salary. So if a team has a player perform well, they’re not allowed to throw him a few extra bucks. That’s BS.
I’m actually surprised that the players bit on that red herring at all.
Likewise with the CBT. The issue seems simple enough if you’re focused on 214M to 220M vs 245 M. The owners are proposing an increase in the tax rate from 20% to 50%, AND loss of a third round pick, AND loss of international bonus pool money. They want to make the defacto salary cap even harder. We know by now that if there is one thing that the players won’t go for, it’s a hard salary cap.
We can only hope that the owners are still just posturing, and from a tactical standpoint, that can be understood, even if they’re playing chicken with the season.
They want maximum leverage by threatening paychecks and
Players have many more items on their wish list in this round of talks, and throwing all those issues into a last minute deal would have to leave several of them aside while owners get their expanded playoffs and as few changes as possible to the old CBA.
Yup, the Rays are bad for the sport. IMO, if the Rays aren’t forced to actually spend their own money on their team, negotiations failed. Too bad, they’re really clever, but they’re terrible for the game.
When baseball went on strike in 1981 I was furious. Since preschool years I had watched baseball with my parents and eventually learned about stats and who players were in the league. I was a complete baseball junkie by the time I was a teenager. Enter the 1981 strike and I quit watching any kind of baseball, didn’t go to games and follow stats. I wasn’t interested again until the early 90s. Then the ‘94 fiasco. And now? I doubt I storm off in a huff again re a lockout but they will lose a LOT of fans just like those who never came back after 1994. They will likely lose more fans this time, too. A friend suggested we form a fans union and I seriously like the idea
Baseball had the longest stretch of labor peace than any of the major sports. No disruptions since 1994. We now have a lockout in the offseason. Not a game has been lost. Not particularly upset yet. Just bored.
Great perspective
Just split the difference in all demands and play ball. It is pathetic that we are at this point and agreements can’t be done in advance of deadlines. Both sides are irresponsible to the game and the fans.
What would be nice is if they gave themselves a deadline of the start of the season to get it done and allow spring training to start as a sign of good faith
Here’s the thing…the owners have all of the leverage in this and the ONLY way for the players to “win” is to show an irrational willingness to kill the golden goose.
If they aren’t willing to do that and if they owners are not convinced that they will do that, this is all for naught.
How do you think the players got free agency originally? I’ve lived through every strike and lockout in MLB history. The MLBPA union was the envy of every sport and was often called the strongest union in the world. It’s only been the last few CBA’s that the players blinked. I doubt they’re going to blink again this time.
Keep in mind that the national TV contracts paid out in full in 2020, with MLB teams agreeing to begin paying back those “loans” beginning this year. If games are canceled, what teams owe will escalate. They also have a nice deal with Apple TV they want to launch this year. Significant additional money. If the owners continue this lockout, they will begin to feel significant pressure. If I’m the players, I’ve already decided to sit this out through April unless the owners start making concessions. This is the players best chance to shift the economics back in their favor. They’re not going to let it pass. The owners know that. They probably fear it. Let’s see how much they fear it. I still believe they’ll come to an agreement faster than many suspect, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a slight delay to the season.
I agree that MLBPA at one point was the strongest union, maybe on Earth, maybe ever. Since the years started beginning with 2 instead of 1, not so much.
At this point, the owners have no reason to fear the players until the players do actual damage, not just threaten it.
I think Tony Clark trying to sell them crumbs again is more likely.
LMAO. The owners have zero leverage. They start losing money the moment there are no spring training games. Both local gate and TV money. The players don’t get paid in spring training. They won’t lose a penny until the regular season starts. Their first paycheck is in the middle of April. The players have been pooling their merchandise royalties for 5 years now. Add to that a large portion of union dues and they have a pot of nearly $1 billion to keep players above water for several months. By June the owners will have lost several BILLION dollars in TV revenue alone. Then add in the lost ticket sales. Plus lost sponsorship revenue. They will still be paying for leases on stadiums, coaching staffs, and front office personnel.
The owners made plain two years ago they don’t care about the regular season.
As long as they get playoff money and their franchise values keep rising EXPONENTIALLY, they are fine playing as few regular season games as need be.
The players lose money they never make back.
If the owners crush the players AGAIN, they can lose a season or more and still come out ahead.
So, unless the players are prepared for scorched Earth…it’s a bluff with no backup plan.
The owners make the majority of their money in the regular season even with an expanded playoffs. They care about it. A lot.
Maybe if you create yet another account to copy and paste this from it will become true.
Wow
That’s pretty funny. In Australia we would call that counter offer “taking the piss”
They should just split the difference on the starting salary 700 starting salary, 220 threshold moving to 230 at end of contract. Start the bonus pool at 35 million and increase to 50 million by the end of the contract. Tweek the serivice time issue more. Universal DH, and 14 game playoff!
Splitting the difference on the CBT between $214 million and $245 million is starting at $229.5 million. Splitting the difference on the pre-arb bonus pool would be $55 million. 14 team playoffs is a half billion more for the owners. Players want a good chunk of that to say yes. Where are the owners giving up that cash in their pathetic offers?
Who is negotiating for each side? The players need to find new representation. They seem to be winning on exactly zero issues.
They need to pick a few key issues and stick to them, reducing the years of team control should be front and center. The bonus money pool seems pretty silly to start with. It just one more thing for the owners to manipulate or renegotiate later on.
It’s not like the PA is “losing” on requests for small, incremental changes. They had a long list of huge asks that had practically no shot to be agreed upon. Getting this bonus pool would be a nice win.. but expecting anywhere near $100 million in year seems nuts.
You may want to go read the articles referenced here. The number on issue is player share of a rising revenue pool in MLB. Over the last 5 seasons player salaries have gone down while owner revenues and team values have gone way up. solving that is not a single point type of negotiation.
Salary floor and cap for each team based on league revenue.
Done.
The other sports have done it this way for ages. The MLBPA refuses to allow a salary cap (again, even though a pseudo cap is already in place LOL). This is really the dumbest stance on either side of any sport I can remember. The owners are already aligned to not spend into the tax. So what good is it to oppose a cap?
I think they should put a max contract structure in place too, like the NBA. Again all based on league wide revenues. This is another area the MLBPA has totally failed in. They are trying to protect the monster contracts of a VERY select few players and because of that they have no leverage. Limit contract lengths to 7 years post arb if a guy resigns with his team or 6 years if he goes elsewhere. You want to get the owners perked up? There you go.
The reasons neither will work has been said ad infinitum on here. You can’t have either without two things.
First, equal revenue sharing by all the teams. When the top 3 teams are over $600 million and the bottom 3 are at about $250 million, you can’t fairly say what an appropriate floor or ceiling is for individual teams. The disparity is too great.
Second, open books by the owners. You cannot fairly set either of those limits without knowing how those caps compare to total revenue.
No doubt that there will be baseball this year, most likely a full season with a shortened spring training. Anyone familiar with bigger scale negotiations, little happens until crunch time, which is probably around the 3rd week in February. Both have too much to lose here. They’ll figure it out.
bean counting accountants should never been put in positions to lead. they once ruined the general mortors and are ruining the game of baseball.
I find it mind boggling; $100m should be the low point for this pool and the owners think it should be lower, yikes
If you want to see real movement let the players offer non guaranteed contracts.
Nothing prevents teams from offering non-guaranteed contracts.
What they should do – but never will – is eliminate long-term, guaranteed contracts. Players only need to perform in their walk year to keep the money train on the tracks. You can see how much more motivation players have when it’s a contract year. Correa even played a full season…imagine that! Alternatively how bout this- players missing time or coming off a down year have to give money back to the owners. They cry at how underpaid they are when they have a great season. But how many of them have their deals reduced when they suck? The next one will be the first.
Great post!
Yes, I hate the fully guaranteed contract. I’ve been saying this for years. What protection do owners have against the player who never lived up to a 7 year fully guaranteed contract. They either are forced into a bad trade, or just eat the money.
Protection? Don’t give it to them! Nobody is forcing them.
It’s a free market. After four years in the minors earning poverty wages, plus three years earning artificially depressed minimum salary, and three years of arbitration, players can negotiate a free market deal. I feel no pain for an owner who makes a bad deal at that stage.
Instead of a bonus pool, just let players who are all stars, or earn a silver slugger or gold glove, or similar achievement be eligible for arbitration after two years. Others are eligible after 2.5 years, which is 2.086 or 30 days less than they would be this winter. Solved.
Nobody is forcing them, that’s true. But if you don’t your fans will say you’re not trying to win. Plus, you’ll never be able to keep a team together.
Also, owners don’t have a crystal ball. How the hell are they supposed to know when a pitchers arm is about to fall off, or a player who had been solid for years suddenly loses it at 29 or whatnot. It’s easy to point to bad contracts when you have the benefit of hindsight.
I have been pushing for not counting injured players agains’t the cap. This would keep teams that are trying to win from not adding a player to win.
The teams that put together a lousy product need to be protected from the wrath of the paying customers who expect to be treated with respect? The thinking gets weirder every day.
Nonsense, although I do understand the sentiment.
However, I do have a couple of related ideas:
—A minimum standard clause, ie the guaranteed contract would convey only if the player would produce within x % of third-party projections such as those from Fangraphs
—A tiered contract, ie producing between x level and y level would reward the player with z compensation, producing between a level and b level would reward c compensation, etc.
—Expanded injury provisions
—Expanded arbitration that would allow for teams to more easily void the contract of players who would not meet expectations in terms of off-the-field work, practice effort, overall commitment level, etc.
None of that would ever happen either, but it’s nice to dream.
FWIW in such a fantasy world, I would give MLBPA it’s currently sought after higher bonus pool figure and a few other smaller concessions.
None of this will happen because none of it should happen. Each and every one of these suggestions places all the risk on the players and zero on the teams. It also encourages the gaming of contracts and it assume players who don’t “produce” are doing it on purpose.
Other than that, perfection. Well, if you own a baseball team anyway.
That will happen about the same time as owners decide to give up on long term guaranteed TV contracts. Your team wins or you don’t get paid. Imagine that!!
Justin Upton should be subjected to that rule, and Pujols should have.
MLBPA isn’t serious about making a deal. They want every concession.
If the MLBPA is so worried about about their fellow baseball player. They why don’t they include all the minor league players in their union and take care of them.
Ummmmmmmmm, Maybe because minor league players are not part of the MAJOR LEAGUE union? You think that might be it?
Actually that is the obvious reason, but there’s nothing stopping the players from demanding that every minor league player be paid $1000 per week for 26 weeks, plus housing.
They have bargained away the rights of amateurs being drafted.
They have consented to cutting the draft from 40 rounds to 5 rounds.
They let draft bonuses be paid over multiple years.
They agreed that drafted players were outright prohibited from signing major league contracts.
And minor league players have had no seat in those talks at all.
And when MLB owners and minor league team owners lobbied congress for an exemption from minimum wage laws, the MLBPA was missing in action.
Players would score HUGE points with fans if they grew a pair and stood up for minor league players. $1000 per week would cost teams relatively very little. Trevor Bauer’s salary would cover the whole lot of it!
@LA. Well said and spot on!
“The other known modification to the union’s offer, per Drellich, involves efforts to disincentivize service time gaming. The MLBPA is seeking to allow players to “earn” a full year of service based upon their finishes in various awards voting and placements on Wins Above Replacement leaderboards.”
This would be a total non-starter for me if I’m MLB. Even elite players in the minors may have things that teams may want them to work on, like plate discipline, K-rate, etc. Simply doing well doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be room for possible improvements. It depends on the individual.
That said, it’s a very difficult issue to solve and I’m not sure I see a possible solution out there given how unique each individual situation would be. I think the best thing that could be done would be to make it a little easier for such players to win potential arbitration cases, and I also don’t hate compensating teams in some form for having their top prospects start the season in the big leagues.
Sigh. That’s all
Happy Black History month, Mike.
If the Union really wanted more money for younger players then settle like this. Players get there $100 million per year they can distribute how they see fit. But the Luxury tax goes to the owners $214 mil increase to $220 mil by end of CBA. Union gets min salary year 1 $650 mil, year 2 $700 mil, year 3 $800 mil. Owners get expanded playoffs. For service time and tanking, Give teams that have a top rated prospect on major league roster all season a draft pick reward. Revenue sharing must be spent on payroll. Top 8 pick draft lottery. Remove draft penalties for signing free agency.
Top free agents might have to settle for less than $300 million total, or $40 million AAV. But the young guys will make more, and if all revenue sharing has to go to payroll more mid tier guys will have markets. And competitiveness should improve.
I can up with that in $15 mins drinking a beer. What are these extremely high paid professional negotiators doing that it’s took this long with no end in sight.
Much of this could happen. The sticking points in your suggestions would be the CBT threshold at 214M, which is even far short of inflation. Owners are also proposing a 50% tax instead of 20%, plus loss of a third round pick and bonus pool money for “offenders”. They want a harder salary cap.
The other tough one is requiring revenue sharing dollars to be spent on payroll. It should happen, of course, but owners want the right to tank. They probably regret ever putting revenue sharing into the CBA. Several owners would be on board, though.
I don’t put a high priority on the Luxury tax, very few teams actually come close to it routinely. Keeping it lower might interfere with a few free agents getting ridiculous contracts. But forcing teams to spend revenue sharing on players instead of pocketing it as profit would renew the market for mid tier vets. And give the players more money overall than just raising the tax level so Yankees and Dodgers can spend a few million more on a couple guys. That would be the trade off, owners get lower luxury tax, players get more money spent by many more teams. Instead of the Indians, Rays, Pirates, and A’s owners pocketing Yankee, Dodger, and Cub money. I just feel if money is being taken from the large market teams then it should be used to better the overall product. Instead of paying owners that dont try to grow their own.
Unfortunately, the CBT is one of the highest priorities for both players and owners.
The owners want to use it as a hammer to give them the salary cap that they couldn’t get since 1994. The players have attempted to die on that hill, but have unwittingly given a defacto salary cap, to where every team that was over the threshold got under it including the Dodgers and Yankees, And to the point where seven teams came within $4 million of the threshold in 2021. They have it down to a science.
So it’s not just the number. That part is easy. The owners want to harden the cap with more penalties and as long as they keep that position, there won’t be any baseball. The players would be better to give up a 100% tax at a higher level, say $ 250-M or $275M, and get a salary floor, or tax just as harsh on the lower payrolls.
I’m generally not on the side of the players, but in fairness, the owners can’t tell the players their key talking points are absolute non starters. That attitude may take me closer to the player’s side. Either way, there is plenty of money for both sides to get fat, they just need to stop quibbling over percentage points and get this done.
Then why do large market teams get a new stadium when they want but currently two small competitive teams are struggling to save up for new stadiums. Now small markets need the revenue sharing – so it’s rigged for the evil empties to hoard cash that’s all. Unfortunately the players association is fitting the wrong battle as small market teams will not sign off on their requests as they are. They can’t
This is uglier than I thought. Why is the union even trying to tie WAR to service time? That seems like a total waste of time. It’s like they are making things up to fight about.
Kiss this season goodbye.
The owners first proposed replacing arbitration with a WAR based pay scale for players with 3+ years of service. Then they proposed eliminating super 2 status. Then they proposed using a WAR based system for super 2’s. Now it’s the players who propose the WAR system but for a short list of players who are not yet arbitration eligible.
The owners also first proposed free agency based on age at 29-1/2 years. The players then proposed a hybrid of six years or five years age 29-1/2, Owners called that too radical.
Just play the game. Greedy b……ds.
Wow, that ought to get it done….
At this pace, they should have an agreement by 2045.
The entire draft/prospect development system needs to be scrapped. Start over. Begin by limiting the number of players a team can control, which would be enough to fill their roster, and the AAA roster. Have multiple drafts per season. But, all MLB draft hopefuls must spend 1 year in the low minors (except certain foreign professionals).
Players are free agents immediately after completing their first contract.
Oh, and when a major leaguer is cut, they hit the MLB waiver wire, then they go to the MiLB waiver wire.
So many problems solved with a system like this, including tanking!
In case you didn’t notice, there is a huge difference between players playing their first few years in the minor leagues and Major League talent. This is not the NBA and it never will be. There is enough bad product in the Major Leagues right now without cheapening it further.
Absolutely, I realize how long it takes a Major Leaguer to develop. You missed the point of burning off at least 1 year in the low minors before a player can be drafted to the parent system. (By parent system, I mean the AAA/MLB clubs).
By limiting how many players they can control, you take out a ton of risk for the ball clubs who shell out many millions of dollars for players who never even advance to AAA. That up front investment is why clubs demand control of their young players who do actually succeed.
The players would be better in such a system, not worse.
Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
Season is toast.
Who cares?
Oops, I walked into a hand wringers meeting by mistake.
baseball is my favorite sport and because of this stupid lockout i am losing interest at this point i am hoping the whole season is not canceled
Players are overplaying their hand. It’s one thing for the owners to set aside money for a pool to reward pre arbitration players, it’s quite another for players to reduce the amount of time until arby eligibility. That’s a total non-starter because small market teams would never go for that. They’re already looking at less from if the amounts that teams pay for exceeding the payroll limits if that amount is raised substantially. The owners gave an inch and the players want to take a mile not just by negotiating the amount of a bonus pool but adding something in addition to that.
This is very discouraging. Unless realistic offers are exchanged this isn’t ending soon.
There should be more revenue sharing to maintain a competitive league. Now why do most large market teams not spend up and use the lux tax as way to keep extra cash using a very low percent of income to payroll. To me that’s the problem.
While it’s understandable that fans think that way, the data suggests differently. The move from 20% to 34% revenue sharing has led to a direct reduction in the players’ share of the revenue pie, while in recent years has contributed to tanking. There are teams that now build their payrolls around revenue sharing while doing little to increase fan attendance and enthusiasm. That’s bad for the game. Cleveland owners, as a key example, know they’ll get a huge payout on the sale of the team as they continue to cut payroll. All that increased revenue sharing will do is transfer the wealth from one owner’s pocket to another. Asking the big market teams to increasingly support smaller market teams is a bad model as evidence shows they won’t do much of anything to contribute back.
While that’s a good case let’s look at large market teams such as Yankees that as an example do not cross the luxury tax even when they spend significantly lower % of total revenue on payroll than many mid and small market teams do. Also it’s easy just look at money spent payroll while ignoring other factors. Like competitive small market teams such as A’s and Rays not only spending a higher percentage of total revenue but also trying to save $ for a new stadium down payment. Yankees had no problem dropping $700mm for their new stadium while Rays in last 7 years have been able to scratch out $300mm while still competing. You can’t have A LEAGUE with just large markets profiting – they should be spending more – helping the entire league. Look at payroll as percent of gross income. Shocking abuse by several large markets
This is where we need a “neutral” Commissioner of Baseball. The owners get their representative, the players get theirs. Obviously they represent the providers of cash and the on-field talent. But somebody needs to look out for the interests of the game itself and knock some heads when necessary.
Here is my typical simplistic solution. Arbitration at 2.5 years and free agency at 5.5 years. Helps address service time manipulation. Peg league minimum salary and CBT threshold to league revenue growth. Why develop all these new mechanisms when tweaks to what is already there ought to bring both sides very close?
I don’t follow your proposal. How do you get from two representative selected by the very much non-neutral sides to a commissioner who is neutral in looking out for the interests of the game? And why would the owners giving up their exclusive hiring and firing powers over the commissioner? Just for appearances?
The commissioner is the exact opposite of “neutral.”
I never said it was realistic, but it would be for the better of the game. The owners would go along with it if they were far-signted, but I don’t think they are. What improves the health of the game would improve the value of their investment. It is being long-term greedy and not just for the appearance of it. Think how much worse the non-playing side of baseball has become since an owner became commissioner (Selig) and then his stoolie Manfraud took over! But again, I know I am not being realistic.
Unfortunately for what you suggest, the commissioner’s entire job portfolio already is improving the value of the owners’ investments. He is the CEO of MLB. So you should look at what he does as representing the interests of his employers, because the moment he fails to do that is the moment he hits the bricks. We should know, any commissioners who crosses the owners soon loses his job.
I’m also always a little puzzled by references to “greed.” Nobody is in the baseball business for altruistic reasons. The owners are trying to maximize their return on investment and the players want to get paid commensurate to their talents, exactly the same as anyone else who owns a business or seeks out employment. Calling people who are behaving probably exactly the same way you do “greedy” isn’t getting anyone anywhere.
We are in agreement more than you think. I agree that the owners want to maximize the value of their considerable investments, and the players have the same right to maximize their own value.
What I meant by “long-term greedy” is my belief that looking out for the long-term health of the sport will maximize long-term profits and franchise value. One way to do that is a neutral commissioner who can knock some heads together on both sides when damage is being done to the game itself. But that takes vision, making a little sacrifice in the short-term in order to make more in the long term. That is called an investment.
Sorry if these thoughts didn’t come across. I am not one of these anti-capitalist, anti-owner types.
The only way to come close to a “neutral” commissioner is for MLB to make it a longterm contract position, which they can hire but not fire during the contract term. Such a commissioner would still be only quasi-independent, though, as the contract would come up for renewal after however many years, so a smart commissioner who didn’t want to be a one-term commissioner would still always want to be able to count to 16. Hard to escape the fact that MLB hires the commissioner, so that’s why he’s beholden to the owners and nobody else.
I have a problem with the greed accusation being used to condemn behaviors that most people actually believe are just fine, so long as they are being done by themselves and not by others. It’s pretty cynical, but then we live in cynical times.
The last neutral commissioner was Bart.
I don’t care who’s right or wrong. I make 50 grand a year. I just want to see baseball at a reasonable price
These rich punks are going to ruin the league. It’s time to put a fork in the government protected MLB and let the market create something people will continue to follow and appreciate.
Ain’t gonna happen. Google USFL, American Basketball Association, and World Hockey Association.
Where would they play? Certainly no MLB owner with right of refusal in their stadium contracts is going to just let a renegade competitor use their facilities.
SO all the union proposed is just adding a year in service time manipulation. top 20 at each position per league is fairly much every 1b , cf or c position gets an extra year of service time. WAR – what is it good for – even lindor had about a 4 war – and was terrible. The allstars and voting for awards in order to add service time is just locals and local media stuffing the ballot boxes. I dont see any serious of getting a deal done. I’d blame the boras agents for this
They just should say, free agency begins at day one call up.
Like all pro sports it’s millionaires vs billionaires fighting over the hard earned money from the fans. I don’t understand how there are any diehard fans anymore. Kids can’t get autographs and players ignore fans. Yet so many fans still refer to teams as “our” and “we”. I wish the fans would go on strike one year and teach these spoiled rich jerks some humility.
I SUPPORT THE OWNERS!
I am glad the players, if they can, get rich. The world is littered with destroyed and broken former athletes who were ridden into the dirt by their teams and left with nothing after they built the sport.
There are examples of pro football hall of famers with broken bodies who ended up basically one step from being homeless. That player plays today? He has a chance to take care of himself when he short live playing days are over.
In the end, the OWNERS decided to pay the big salaries. What do they want? A restriction from them doing what they’ve been doing anyway?
Long time baseball fan here and I SUPPORT THE OWNERS. If the players push it to a lockout into the regular season, let them do it. Let the players forfeit the entire season for all I care at this point!
The ownership class welcomes your support.
I support the players I enjoy watching who have talents 99.9999% of us can only dream of having.
Right, I can’t throw a ball or hit a ball as well as they can (big deal). Interestingly enough, I’m faster than the average one of them, though.
This is absurd. Atlanta won the World Series three months ago now and we still don’t even know what the roster is going to look like when they try to defend their title.
Now they’re negotiating! Done deal right?
The service time “solution” is lip service. There are not many rookies who will finish in the top few places in WAR by position in their rookie year, even HOF’s will not. If you get a rookie with potential and they are league average its a win in their rookie years. Teams will just keep them down until Memorial Day so they miss 20-25% of the season and make placing that high in WAR next to impossible.
I think I may be explaining to my grandkids in 30 years about how they killed baseball with greed in 2022. I place most of this on the owners. They can prove me wrong by opening their books (which they’ll never do) to prove they aren’t making money and paying minor leaguers fairly in proportion.
Here’s a thought…
The owners want a $10 million bonus pool. The players want $105 million. Meet at $50 million.
The owners want a minimum salary of $615,000. The players want $775,000. Meet at $700,000.
NOTE: I am aware that they’re all too whiny and egotistical to actually do this.
After all this nonsense caused by the players yet again, just like 1995, the owners should:
-No more hot water for the clubhouse
-No more pre game food
-No more post game food
-High pitched ringing sound at all times in the clubhouse
-High pitched ringing sound at all times in the dugout
-High pitched ringing sound at all times in the bullpen
-Bargain basement trainers
-Bargain basement physical therapists
-Intentionally sabotage the players’ AC and heating and then never fix it
-Intentionally sabotage the players’ heating and then never fix it
-The most extremely annoying LED lighting for the players
-Bargain basement hotels on road trips
-Signing ceremonies in janitorial closets and bathrooms
-Pay people to sit in the seats behind homeplate and heckle the fans in the most obnoxious possible ways
-No more team jets and players travel on road trips in extremely light weight rickety propeller planes that jolt violently with the slightest amount of turbulence
-No more talking allowed on the team buses
Find a clip from a movie of a woman screaming in a shrill, piercing manner and blast it on full volume on a non-stop loop during all team travel.
are you 11 years old?
Wasnt that the plot of Major League and the Indians won anyway.
GREED BY ALL SCR_W THE FANS AS ALWAYS
I don’t think the owners could care less about 3 million extra per team. This is postering to get more playoff teams and a world wide draft.
I’ve switched sides. I’m now on the players side.
Universal DH will happen. Yea.
Expanded playoffs will happen. Boo
Non compensation for free agents will happen. Yea.
The luxury threshold will expand a moderate, but not huge amount. Yea.
The draft order will change to encourage more competition. Yea.
I have no idea if a world wide draft will take place. I’d like that, but I have no idea.
this side is always brighter!
All of that is true.
Owners would still like an international draft, but a sizeable portion of the players are from central America and Venezuela, and they don’t want to leave those kids t the mercy of teams by giving them exclusive signing rights without a guarantee that teams will actually pay them.
They also are signed at a younger age than north American amateurs, so that’s why they propose an international draft. They’d have to make the parameters uniform and guarantee the slot bonuses to merge them.
In any case, the owners got most of what they wanted with the hard slot limits, so implementing a draft- which was Bud Selig’s number one unfilled wish- so the trade off has more limited value to the players.
I can see owners giving more on the minimum salary than on arbitration issues. The players should grab the tiered structure, starting at a higher mark around 700K for rookies.
The CBT threshold should wind up at $225- 230M. That is the adjustment for inflation over the past year and the mid point between the two sides at the moment. The bigger issue is the owners’ demands for a 50% tax and more draft penalties at the lowest tier. Hopefully, that’s just posturing.
If the players throw in their grievance, they might get a lot more concessions, but that elephant in the room hasn’t been spotted by any reports of the talks so far.
All I know is I like to watch the game played at the highest level. I think if the players and owners can’t figure out the bull…then they don’t deserve fans in any capacity.
MLB Players do what they want to do, do what they’ve wanted to do most of their lives, get pampered royally, get rewarded handsomely, receive medical care, get paid healthy or not, and at least for some period of time get paid for doing nothing.
More than a half million $$ for part of a year isn’t shabby for starting pay.
They all receive more than they could ever get in a “real” job.
The money the top end gets is beyond monopoly money.
A few million a year for a few years (well saved) sets up life for 40, 50, 60 years. Some get rich enough to become Owners.
OTOH, the Owners who had very large sums of money before they became Owners fund the existence of Baseball for us fans. Thank God for well-healed Owners.
If the fortunate few players who make fabulous salaries cared a spit for the sport, they would help fund the 95% who never make it even to a subsistence level and have nothing to fall back on.
All MLB players should thank the Owners for providing the opportunity to get rich.
since most mlb owners are former/current money managers they made money by making someone else to lose money. and they are pampered very well with the teams’ money. mlb owners have to thank the players to make so much more money than they earn.
The size of the pie is not constant. In an economy, someone does not have to lose for someone else to gain.
yeah, that’s why middle class is shrinking and the top 2 richest persons have more wealth than the bottom 40% ! in the tech industries, what you said might have been true. but not in the money managing industry.
Rising tide lifts all boats.
Bezos and Musk making billions doesn’t hurt the millions buying from them.
Amazon has essentially closed most of the malls in America.
And Amazon routinely steals ideas from small vendors who use their platforms, sell their own version of their products and put them out of business, too, all while getting rich off of their ideas.
Literally millions of people are measurably poorer due to Bezos getting richer.
A rising tide lifts all superyachts.
All boats? Not so much.
So you believe that player compensation should be figured by some means other than how much the teams are willing to pay them for their talent?
Pulling up a chair in anticipation of your answer. I’m sure it will be most… imaginative.
Is there really a lock out over this nickel dime silliness? Minimum salaries, $100m league-wide bonus pool, I thought the players were fighting for real things, not petty nonsense. The players should fight for two primary things. Universal DH, which creates 15 new higher salaried every day positions. And some sort of total team control time period from day one with an age maximum to become eligible for FA.
I honestly don’t care about the bickering of millionaires and billionaires, even the minimum guys make more then I will in a decade.
What I care about is the third party that has no representation in this, the fans. I followed a small market team and frankly I’m tired of doing so because it generally means one or two things.
1. five to ten years of bad for a couple years of good or
2. Don’t get attached to any player because they likely aren’t going to be around for long.
What I want is every team on equal footing financially. Have a floor have a ceiling encourage teams to lock up young players to set face of franchise types, allow teams to break the ceiling to keep the players they developed.
I don’t want to hear about how a player can’t afford his tropical island paradise for his kid when I’m trying to move things around to keep a roof over my head and keep everyone fed.
There are plenty of people that feel like me, if they stay locked out or strike and the season is lost I don’t think people will come back all that quick. Plenty of other things out there to fill the void.
you must be making too little!
Service time based on WAR is the dumbest thing i’ve heard all day and i’ve been listening to the “news” all day. using WAR to calculate bonuses, sure but for contract length is dumb (essentially what it is) This could be manipulated as well.
Just do a flat contract from the time they are initially signed not the time they are in the MLB.. let them opt out after after year 4 in the MILB if they don’t make it. cap rookie deals to age 30 regardless of when signed.
Agents would hate it though since they have little control during that time.
also find a way to incentivize teams and players stay with their teams while not locking them into it allowing players to look for greener pastures.
Charles O. Finley had it right. Everyone on a one year contract which will end guaranteed contracts and arbitration (which is why Marvin Miller was afraid of it). While a superstar might get $50m from a team, there will be no Chris Davis type contracts where a team is stuck paying $20m plus for many years to a player who is no longer playing.
3 million isn’t an incentive to play the organizations best talent.It’s simple to fix.If you bring in a prospect and put them on the roster.You get bird nba type rts after x# of years.Also if the player comes from your organizations minor league system.Team gets salary cap relief by using their last contracts Ave salary per yr.This way the cap numbers will be arbitration ave instead of the resigning number being against the cap.So the more homegrown players stay home.The more wiggle room under the cap will be an advantage to playoff fighting teams and force teams to compete.
I wish they would reduce the games from 162 to 154 and increase the playoff games. Start games late April and start on West Coast.
All the posturing and blame-gaming is nonsense.
The “standoff” will end when either:
1. The players decide that getting paid is better than not getting paid and if games are canceled they will make even less, or
2. The owners calculate with a fair degree of accuracy that the loss of regular season game income will be more than the loss acceding to what the players want.
Neither is a good solution:
1. Few players will gain much in the short run of a career — they make more money in FA contracts when the owners are making more money.
2, Some owners will be seriously affected — not all teams are the Yankees, Mets, & Dodgers. The imbalance created by $200+ million payrolls v. under $100MM is not healthy.
It is the Commissioners job to nail on this stuff down during the season. Locking out the players, while teams and owners and MLB commissioners carry on with business is typical union busting techniques. Hurry up, millionaires, and get this figured out and fire Manfred. He makes more troubles than he solves.
Or maybe the owners haven’t fired Manfred because they like what he is doing, and because they’ve directed him to do it.
Something to consider, at least.
Don’t need extended playoffs and a 162-game season. Something has to give:
“Today we have the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Live followed by Game 5 of the World Series.”
The only solution I came up with was a SCHEDULED double header for everyone at least once a month, and elimination of the all-star game. Allow teams to expand rosters by 1 for each DH. Less postseason off days too.
The regular season needs to start in April and the World Series over before Halloween.
They’re going to expand the playoffs unless the owners are so stingy that they can’t come to an agreement and the players won’t give it to them.
162 games in 154 dates.
Each team plays four double headers at home and four on the road.
April 1 start, September 30 regular season finish.
No days off between playoff games in a series, only one day after the series is over.
Enough of the nickle and dime BS, the fans are going to get real impatient with this clown act from both sides.
if Veteran players agreed to a 70% buyout system as part of the new cba u could use that money put in a fund for younger players so player gets cut still has 4 yrs 100 mill left on contract he would get paid 4 yrs 70 million plus can shop himself again teams take 2/3 or 20 million put in younger players fund owners take other 10 million reinvest in free agents the older players with crazy big contracts that under perform need to give back something
Can someone explain again what the Service Time Manipulation is? So MLB wants to get rid of it because it’s unnecessary? So the Kris Bryant example? So the Cubs had an extra year of control him? So if they didn’t wait would that mean they would have only had him for 3 years? I need clarity lol.
Rookies sign six-year deals. However, if a team holds a player down for two weeks, that first year doesn’t count because the player doesn’t get enough days to count as a year of service time. Effectively, the team gets seven years of control instead of six.
At this rate get ready for opening day
July 1 2022
Here is something to chew on. If household income in the US had grown at the same rate as MLB players salaries over the past 50 years, the average household income would be $3.2 million annually. Any player good enough to hold onto a bench role will make enough to retire at 35 and never work another day in their life.. Those poor guys. No wonder they are unwilling to go back to work until their laundry list of demands is met.
I made a bold prediction I think we miss at least all of April. Season starts in May.